Elsewhere on the Internet, The European features a very useful interview with none other than Dr Etzioni. I swear, the more I read from the good sociologist, the more I find he has his head screwed on truly straight. I am not sure I agree with him on the way in which ‘humanitarianism’ or a philosophical romanticism are acceptable substitutes for religion qua religion, but I could not possibly agree more with his critique of consumerism (and the materialist assumptions underlying it) and his foci for an alternative mode of thinking which focuses more solidly upon the family, upon friends, upon artistic and aesthetic pursuits and upon the public life.
Along with a growing number of other public intellectuals these days (including some with whom I have disagreed more often, such as Fareed Zakaria), Dr Etzioni is tackling some of the thorniest problems with the modern question of liberalism. Here he addresses a very common criticism of communitarianism (to which the European very bluntly gives voice):
The European: The idea of community interests has often been invoked to justify repression and exclusion. The states with good human rights records tend to be states on the liberal end of the spectrum, the peaceful history of Europe since World War II is also the history of liberal governance.
Etzioni: Communities exist everywhere. It is mistaken to think that they only exist in Communist China or in the left-leaning democracies of Latin America. One complaint that my colleagues from economics departments have about German workers is that they don’t like to move. These economists see that capital has become more mobile and respond by saying that labor needs to become more mobile as well. It does not work that way. Workers like to remain close to their families, to the burial sites of their ancestors, to their friends. That is true across the world, not just in individual countries. In Southern Europe, the Catholic Church is an important provider of a sense of community and social services. In Berlin, Turkish communities provide similar services. These communal ties are not dead. They can be oppressive but there is nothing inherent to communities that puts them at odds with human rights.
To which I would add, a similar criticism may be made of those states which privilege not ‘community interests’ or values, but rather the ‘liberal governance’ and process above all else. True enough, the peaceful history of Europe since World War II is the history of liberal governance… but then, so was the history of Europe since 1848, leading straight into the nightmare of world war. In governance, it would be naïve to ignore the value-laden nature of political institutions or to anticipate outcomes, value-judgements and, indeed, community interests, which are either threatened (directly or indirectly) by liberal process or which seek to take advantage of the liberal process to produce violently illiberal outcomes. In Europe, the most visible example of this is the startling and disconcerting rise of various xenophobic and ultra-nationalist groups (exemplified by the likes of Geert Wilders and Anders Breivik), emboldened by increasingly tone-deaf and inhumane decisions out of Brussels and the public discontent which has followed from them. Indeed, community interests must be seriously considered and defended, and democracy requires a firm commitment to a core set of humanistic values, if it is going to survive in a sustainable form.
Indeed, this question may come to a head much sooner than we anticipate, if Neil Clark’s warning here is any indication. The incredibly process-oriented and economically- and politically-liberal (but decidedly undemocratic) European ‘Troika’ have been forcing incredibly unpopular fiscal policy on a number of EU member states, and it is looking very much like a critical mass of people are angry enough about it to take to the streets (as in Romania).
On a tangentially-related note, it is worth reading first Michael Hudson’s latest blog post (thanks, John!), in tandem with a recent Global Voices Online article ostensibly in support of sex-workers’ rights in China. Here we have a country in which a similar population-control policy was imposed, not by the World Bank, but by the central government – along with an unbalanced ‘opening and reform’ which integrated the country into the neoliberal global economy while uprooting tens of millions of farmers, mostly in the poorer provinces of the interior. As a result, we have a huge, disproportionally male and aging migrant worker population, many of whom have no social safety net whatever, and very few means of gaining one. Quite frankly, prostitution (legal or otherwise), at best, provides only superficial and palliative care to a group of men condemned by their society; at worst, it both obscures and obstructs a true solution to the problem, whilst at the same time exploiting and degrading the labour of the women who participate in the system. What the Chinese rural poor need (and in their history have routinely been denied) is not access to condoms or paid sexual gratification. Much less do they need mandates handed down to them, either by the World Bank or by their own government, artificially controlling their reproduction! What they need are opportunities for stable employment, for marriage and for having families with children (who, in countries like China without social security or a pension system, often represent the only possible means of their parents’ dignified existence in old age)!
It consistently boggles my mind that so many liberals (who, in addition, often like to pretend that prostitution can, in a capitalist economy, ever be a purely consensual – let alone joyful or healthy! – act without severe adverse social consequences) routinely consider the poor, and children, as a problem to be solved rather than as human beings with human needs and human dignity, and thus that these (quite frankly) deranged Malthusian fantasies continue to have such massive currency in the public discourse.
… Anyway. Just a snapshot of what I’ve been reading recently.
Etzioni's point on labor mobility is very important. I think there is a lot to say against the commodity theory of labor. Is it really appropriate to detach the laborer as a human being from his or her labor power? Are we failing to treat workers as full persons?
ReplyDeleteI thought that part of the interview might interest you, John! :D
ReplyDeleteI do think that there is a growing trend to see community as a part of personhood that can only be to the good. My worry, though, is that in the case of workers (as you say), such concerns will only become token. Owners of capital will still expect to be able to uproot it and move it around freely, which workers (the people who actually produce THINGS) cannot so easily do. Sadly, governments in our post-Reagan post-Thatcher world have proven that they listen to the owners of capital far more eagerly than they listen to workers.